The present invention is related to detecting click fraud, and specifically to pixel cluster transit monitoring for detecting click fraud.
Pay Per Click (PPC) is a market tool of the Internet and drives businesses such as Google and Yahoo. In the PPC model, an Advertiser creates clickable advertisements which a Publisher (typically an unaffiliated web site) displays on their website. The Advertiser pays the Publisher for each “click through” which a visitor to the Publisher's site generates, in essence paying for each referral. A PPC system is often extended to include Advertising Networks (e.g., Google) that coordinate the distribution of these advertisements, charging the Advertisers and paying the Publishers, acting essentially as middlemen and making a profit based on the difference between what they pay the Publishers versus what they charge the Advertisers.
Click Fraud (CF) occurs when a person or organization repeatedly generates clicks to a PPC advertisement with the intent of generating an improper charge to the Advertiser. There are several parties who may have an economic motivation to commit Click Fraud.
Click Fraud is unethical and is illegal in several jurisdictions. Click Fraud may be accomplished via automated scripts (clickbots) which run in distributed networks, often using zombie machines (end-user machines compromised by viruses) to simulate clicks from legitimate users. Estimates are that fraudulent clicks represent 2-20% of all clicks.